Programs of Study

Graduate education at the University of Michigan is a shared enterprise. The Rackham Graduate School works together with faculty in the schools and colleges of the University to provide more than 180 graduate degree programs and to sustain a dynamic intellectual climate within which graduate students thrive.

Funding

The University of Michigan provides many sources of financial assistance to help students meet educational and living expenses. Whether you are a prospective student, a current student, a master’s or doctoral student, we want to make sure you know about the funding available for your graduate education.

Rackham Graduate School

Over 8,300 students are enrolled in Rackham degree programs taught and advised by faculty in graduate programs situated within 18 of the 19 schools and colleges across the Ann Arbor campus. Another 7,000 students are enrolled in graduate and professional degree programs administered separately by individual schools and colleges at U-M.

Student Spotlight: Hector Garcia

Hector’s downtime is active. He spends much of his time playing with his three boys, a 7 year-old and 4 year-old twins. His interest in reading non-fiction has slowly morphed into a love of comic books shared with his sons. While his boys are growing up in lovely Ann Arbor, Hector recalls a growing up in a beach town next to the El Yunque rainforest in Puerto Rico, the only rainforest in the U.S. “I spent my childhood surfing,” he says.

Hector is passionate about increasing the recruitment and retention of underrepresented minorities in the engineering field. He explains, “At U-M, I have a good understanding of how recruitment and retention of underrepresented minorities works, and I’d like to develop a similar understanding of practices at other universities. This is a passion of mine and I want to improve the climate and opportunity for Latino graduate students in my field.”

He has been a visible and active presence at the College of Engineering, winning the 2013 Distinguished Leadership Award there. In 2012, as Co-director of the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers – Graduate Community at U-M, he helped increase enrollment of Ph.D. underrepresented minorities by 23%. He says, “The society participates in conferences and is a sponsor of the national conference for the society which will be held in Detroit this year. We’re hosting a hack-a-thon at the conference to create an emphasis on Hispanics in computer science.”

A recent graduate, Hector’s field of research involves the modeling and simulation of advanced technologies such as quantum computing systems. Such devices are represented by so-called quantum circuits, which behave differently than conventional digital circuits, acting in accordance with quantum physics instead of classical physics. Using quantum circuits, he simulates how one would compute in this environment. He details, “I designed new data structures and algorithms that facilitate simulation of broader classes of quantum circuits that are beyond the capabilities of current state-of-the-art simulators. My technique is inherently parallel and thus can take advantage of highly-efficient distributed computing frameworks.”

At this point, he’s considering many career options while pursuing postdoctoral research at U-M through the summer. “I like teaching and have been doing it for a while in graduate school, as there was a dearth in computer science lecturers because of the high demand from students for classes in this field. Teaching is important to me, but research provides the opportunity for long-term payoffs as well,” he says.

He read about the Bouchet Honor Society in the graduate e-newsletter and colleagues in his department encouraged him to apply. Now a 2014 inductee into the Society, Hector serves as an example of scholarship, leadership, character, service and advocacy modeled by members of this esteemed society for students who have been traditionally underrepresented in the academy. He’s hoping the society provides a great network of like-minded scholars and an opportunity to establish connections to a wide variety of research fields.

Rackham Graduate School will be closed for the Thanksgiving holiday at 5:00 p.m. on Wednesday, November 21. We will return at 8:00 a.m. on Monday, November 26. During the holiday, there will be no processing of application materials and no updates to your Wolverine Access account. After we reopen, there will be a delay in processing application materials. Thank you for your patience as we process the high volume of materials.